Once again, I have a choice. I could choose Who's That Girl by Madonna, but I choose the song that became Number 1 on 1st August 1987 and stayed there for two weeks
La Bamba - Los Lobos
as a) we had Madonna last year b) Who's That Girl barely registers with me, perhaps because I heard the Eurythmics song of the same name first. In any case, it's not a major Madonna song, and I have precisely nothing to say about it.
So, La Bamba. I don't, actually, remember either of these songs being Number 1, even though by now I was, most of the year, following the charts. But it will be a running theme that I often have lost touch with them at the time of my birthday, as it's the summer holidays and I'm out of the routine of school then Top of the Pops and might well have been on actual holiday. In this case, I'm pretty certain, me, my sister and my cousin had gone on a riding holiday in the borders (instigated by my cousin) which was the absolute worst time ever, and thankfully put all of us off everything to do with riding (not that i was ever into it) for evermore.
Another running theme, which we've already seen a few times, is that the hit song of the summer is attached to a hit film. So it is in this case - La Bamba was from the film La Bamba, about the life of Ritchie Valens, played by Lou "The Very Best of Neil" Diamond Phillips (there should have ben a supergroup made up of Lou Reed, Neil Diamond and Michelle Phillips, really).
I've not seen the film La Bamba. It was not a massive hit film, but big enough, and well received. I have, though, seen the musical Buddy, which was, as the publicity had it, "Buddy brilliant!" and in which the 17-year-old young star Richard Valenzuela met his fate along with pilot Roger Peterson, Jiles Perry "The Big Bopper" Richardson, Charles Hardin Holley and, of course, the music.
Like I say, I don't remember the song La Bamba being in the charts, but it became a song that was everywhere all of a sudden, with everyone going labalababalabamba, or something like that.
It's a wonderful song, one of the purest, most joyful things that exists, based on a Mexican folk tune, rockified by Valens, here performed by Los Lobos, which means The Wolves.
I have a weird thing about pretty much only listening to English language music, perhaps because I was so bored by opera as a child, and I really like to know what's being talked about, but, for all that, songs in Spanish, from this to Llorando, have a pretty high rate of actually breaking through my defences.
I made a fun quiz question out of it many years ago, which still gets used, just asking Which classic song has lyrics that mean "I am not a sailor, I am not a sailor, I'm a captain, I'm a captain, I'm a captain"?
but I more closely remember that lyrical section "Yo no soy marinero, soy capitan", because I remember, in the summer of 1995, with a couple of friends from Ealing who I'd known for most of my childhood, we came up with "You're not sorry man in yellow, so it can't be done" and thought it was truly the funniest thing that had ever, ever happened, just laughed about it all summer and beyond. And what strikes me is I'd known those two a long time, they were both a year or two older than me, you might have thought we'd become lifelong friends, but I hardly saw them all that much after that, and, how, at school, though you might think it's one of the loneliest times, you do, in most cases, have more good friends than you'll ever have again.
So, that's my main thought about La Bamba. Bummer.
I am a huge fan of Lou "And I are beautiful like" Diamond Phillips as Chavez y Chavez in the Young Guns films, and thought his mates'-rates cameo in 24 the highlight of the whole franchise.
But, in the end, you're not sorry, man in yellow, so it can't be done.
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